Reviews
The O.C. (2003)
The Best and the Worst of Season Two of "The O.C."
Another season has come and gone, and, with twenty-four episodes of drama, heartbreak, and product placement to choose from, I present my "WHO CARES?" awards for the SECOND SEASON of "The O.C." Read them at your own risk, for they contain many spoilers.
Best Character: Summer Roberts. Summer's really come into her own this season: she has had to juggle two boys, Zack and Seth, who proved consistently to be higher-maintenance than she is; has had to pose for and play the role of a diminutive comic-book heroine named Little Miss Vixen; has had to alternately comfort and advise Marissa, her terribly self-absorbed best friend; and has had to face her own foibles in the company of Orange County's wealthy and powerful--i.e., on-again, off-again boyfriend Zack's family. Not bad for one season.
Worst Character: DJ. There was fierce competition for this year's title. But DJ, the gardener-for-hire who functioned--nominally--as Marissa's rebound boyfriend in some early second-season episodes, nearly caused me to stop watching the show. Luckily for me, and for all of humanity, he quickly became a footnote.
Best Couple: Sandy and Kirsten. To watch a couple so thoughtfully and, at times, shamefully go through the highs and lows of their twentieth year of marriage may sound to some as painfully boring television, especially for what is ostensibly a teen drama; but all of the other characters in the O.C. orbit around the Cohens in one way or another, and when Sandy and Kirsten start to unravel, bad things happen in Orange County.
Worst Couple: Alex and Marissa. After facing another failed relationship in DJ, Marissa decides that, in searching for her next romantic partner, her own gender shouldn't be off limits. Thus her turn to Alex, who, after a relationship with Seth proved to be a non-starter, succumbs to Marissa's charms during an exciting hand-holding session at the Bait Shop. Unfortunately for Alex, Marissa's just playing a game of "Just Kidding!" and quickly dumps Alex when she turns into the same sort of domineering jerk Marissa's previous love interests were--sans Ryan, of course. This angle of same-gender relationships could've been more seriously explored, but, alas, Marissa is most definitely not the character to do it with.
Dumbest Plot Twist: Marissa falls for Alex (from the episode "The Second Chance"). Since Marissa's supposed romantic infatuation with Alex was a purported stunt by the writers to breathe new life into the show in order to combat lackluster mid-season ratings, the entire plot line lacked credibility from the start. The coupling is not developed and is quickly dropped. A far riskier move would have been to put Marissa and Alex together--and keep them together.
Cleverest Plot Twist: Trey completes his jail sentence and arrives at Newport (from the episode "The Brothers Grim"). Besides symbolically functioning as a constant reminder of Ryan's past, Trey is a veritable gold mine of delicious O.C. plots. The writers must have had smiles on their faces as they answered these questions: How do we get Ryan to stop being such a restrained milquetoast and return to his beat-'em-up ways? Shove Trey in the pool house! How do we get an old-fashioned, girl's-floating-unconscious-in-the-pool O.C. party going? Throw a birthday bash for Trey! How do we throw some much-needed tension into Marissa's relationship with Ryan? Have Marissa shoot Trey right in front of him, spawning dozens of new plot threads for next season!
Best Kiss: Summer and Seth (from the episode "The Rainy Day Women"). Admittedly, it was corny--Seth, attempting to fix his home's satellite reception during a rare rainstorm, sliding headfirst down the side of his McMansion, his fall broken by a tangle of ropes, encounters Summer who, after ditching Zack and his family at the airport to be with Cohen, kisses him, upside-down, Tobey Maguire-Kirsten Dunst-style, after partially pulling off his (oh, no) Spider-Man mask worn to ward off those deadly droplets of rain--but, nonetheless, it was the most memorable, albeit derivative, kiss in a season of rather unmemorable, derivative kisses.
Best Looking: Mischa Barton (plays Marissa Cooper). Due to the unrelenting thrashing her acting and character takes, not just by me but by many, many others around the world (she is called a "Bot" in some quarters because of her wooden performances), I figured it was time to relay something positive about Ms. Barton; therefore, I hereby anoint her the best looking of the bunch.
Worst Promotional Tie-In: The Ford Mustang. After receiving a new red Ford Mustang coupe at the beginning of the season, Coop (Marissa) mysteriously gets a second red Mustang, this time a convertible, to conveniently park in the background of shots. Oddly, the coupe and the convertible are never seen on-screen at the same time, but alternate.
Best Actor: Peter Gallagher (plays Sandy Cohen). Sandy is the moral center of the show, and Gallagher deftly handles the nuances and the broad strokes of the character.
Best Actress: Kelly Rowan (plays Kirsten Cohen). Ms. Rowan, whose character Kirsten lurked in the background through so much of last season, has this season been thrust into a central role in the story. Kirsten's descent into alcoholism is, entirely to Rowan's credit, heartbreaking.
Worst Episode: "The Distance." The first episode of the season was undeniably the season's most insipid. The seemingly insurmountable obstacles set up at the conclusion of season one are quickly and easily resolved here. And, considering their history, Seth and Luke hamming it up together struck me as a tad disingenuous. Just a tad.
Best Episode: "The Dearly Beloved." In this season-ender, Caleb gets a funeral (to complement his season one-ending wedding to Julie) and Kirsten gets a new, detoxicated home. Everyone doesn't live happily ever after, especially Marissa, who must come to grips with her murderous ways in a reconstituted household complete with the ever-annoying Jimmy "Hey Kiddo" Cooper. Bring on Season Three!
Mind Meld: Secrets Behind the Voyage of a Lifetime (2001)
Thrilling
At first I thought, Who came up with this bright idea? Take two people -- who've know each other for almost forty years, mind you -- and sit them down next to each other for about an hour while the camera is running.
As banal and perfunctory as it sounds in theory, in practice, the concept works -- largely because the clash of the two personalities is (as Mr. Spock would say) fascinating.
Indeed, it is a clash; Shatner and Nimoy couldn't be more different. Yes, they were born four days apart -- as we find out at the beginning of the film -- and their careers following similar arcs, but their professional concerns and personal problems diverged radically. Nimoy, the actor's actor, and Shater, the comedian, approached the roles from different perspectives. Their Trek journeys, although documented in more detail elsewhere, are discussed with benefit of age-weary hindsight.
This film is very entertaining, intriguing in parts, and always interesting. For Trekkers, what more could you want?
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Worthwhile Film (** Spoilers **)
The statement, "Better in execution than design," appropriately encapsulates "Good Will Hunting." Despite an apparent brilliance and creativity in discrete scenes and sequences, examined generally and on a macro level, the film's plot and directional structure lack severely. However, the characterizations, dialogue, and overall mise-en-scene project a unique tendency similarly absent in both mathematics films (recall "Stand and Deliver" as a blasé manifestation of mathematical concepts to an audience) and "Boy Wonder" pictures (movies with a genius-laden protagonist; most are, much like mathematics films, merely adequate and not passionate about the qualities of their main characters).
The most effective parts of "Good Will Hunting" show the conflict between two sets of parallel individuals: Will and Chuckie, and Professors Lambeau and Maguire. The intense and latent rivalry between the two academics describes a potential future for the two twenty-year-olds. Maguire consistently, at least on a superficial basis, searches for the default respect the MIT mathematician receives. Will, although reticent and clearly an outcast, seeks a similar form of respect, although not for his academic qualities, but for his social abilities. Throughout "Good Will Hunting," both pairs of spotlighted characters, after a series of enlightening "adventures," become comfortable with themselves. Despite this banal-sounding narrative flow, the execution is mostly interesting and often unpredictable.
Similar to "Jackie Brown," "Clerks," and "Pulp Fiction," lines in "Good Will Hunting" sound realistic, albeit on a near-poetic and superlative level. Anecdotal portions of the dialogue are given a relaxed temporal frame with which to develop. (A standout instance is Skylar's last-wish tale.) Although the strong propensity toward vulgarities and obscenities is evident, it almost is rendered justifiable; lines are well constructed to "ease the fit" of the negative language that in many other films is overtly unnecessary and inappropriate.
The lyrical music, which relies on short minor-key short melodies rather than grand designations (a John Williams or James Horner variant), is appropriate for the film and functions effectively as a "personal score" for Will Hunting. Danny Elfman, who composed "Bettlejuice," "Men in Black," and "Batman," has rarely shown restraint in his music. The reticent notes support the characterizations rather than defining them (as his other works have often accomplished).
Other than the mostly mediocre diagesis, the film's largest fault is the treatment of its logic in its supposed-main topic: mathematics. Ignoring the errors in the content (a Fourier series, the professor claimed, was to be the first problem on the hallway chalkboard. Instead, simple undergraduate Linear Algebra appears. Of course, this lapse is not noticed by most of the audience, and it does not alter the piece in any respect), more serious errors surface: If Will was another Ramajidan, as Lambeau claims, why was he not given any queries on anything more than an undergraduate level? How about assigning Hunting unsolved problems, like the Goldbach Conjecture or the Reimann Hypothesis? Certainly such mathematical questions should be enough to challenge a truly gifted mathematician.
Vertigo (1958)
Often Sublime
Often sublime, although admittedly initially plodding, "Vertigo" mostly manages to transcend the medium of its inherent restrictions. Most viewers of the film will concur with Robin Wood's statement, "It is one of the five or six truly beautiful movies of the cinema" (Wood was one of the first popular advocates of placing "Vertigo" in the category of a cinematic masterpiece. Without his proponent stance, the piece perhaps might have been largely ignored), especially in the final half.
Instead of weaving a web of intrigue and building to a suspenseful finale, as Hitchcock so consistently executed ("Sabotage," "Strangers on a Train," and "Dial M for Murder" are all instances), "Vertigo" assumes a more mature Hitckcockian approach that would dominate most of his films following. "The Wrong Man" (1957), although still following a "standard" expository/narrative pattern of build-up and suspenseful release, demonstrated the first signs of an underlying consciousness within the main characters (more significant than the entertainment value of simple suspense or danger) achieving a closer examination than the empirical reality and situations. "Vertigo" continues this approach, although much more overtly: Hitchcock achieves the confidence in this film (which was released at the height of the Studio System in Hollywood) to explore several characters' inner psyches as the central diagesis. Of course, as most reviewers have noted, "Vertigo" is a personal examination of the director's own fantasies and fears.
Studying any Hitchcock film certainly requires not only an analysis of the specific piece as discrete, but also as part of a collection and ongoing statement by the creators. (No avocation of the auteur theory is implied.) It is interesting to compare the some aspects of the overall structure of "Vertigo" with "Psycho." Audiences were purposefully manipulated into sympathizing with Norman Baits after the death of the supposed-main character in the 1960-horror film. But in "Vertigo," a strikingly similar phenomenon occurs: after the death of one of the two main characters, and the apparent "resurrection," audience sympathies shift. "Vertigo" achieves this by, interestingly enough, forfeiting suspense. "Psycho" utilizes an opposing but parallel methodology; it gains suspense by the shift in alliances.
Bernard Herrmann once stated that without his musical score to accompany and complement Hitchcock's visuals, fifty percent of the film would be lost. The composer's words are especially true in "Vertigo," where the lush and textured melodies are absolutely necessary to the quality of the picture (in terms of audience involvement, identification, and emotional response).
Despite Hitchcock's other well-regarded masterpiece, "Psycho," having more obvious influences on trends and developments in film (it essentially established an entire genre), "Vertigo"'s impact in the history of cinema cannot be overlooked.
Kazablan (1973)
Relatively Good "Mood" Film
"Kazablan" is, simply put, a film that runs more closely akin to a dream sequence or rapid visual/audio/sensory montage than a linear-constructed primarily plot-driven piece. In some respects, the camera's tendency to wander almost randomly to various individuals, locales, and scenarios somewhat resembles a Monty Python "The Meaning of Life" form. (Although certainly no comparison, beyond the superficial visual image, is being promoted.)
To differentiate the quality of performances of the actors is irrelevant in a film with "Kazablan"'s qualities; certainly, the acting is respectable, but the characters are nearly all background to the foreground of the Israeli surroundings' atmosphere. (More specifically, very noticeably 1970's Israel.) In addition, the mood is sustained very well throughout the picture.
The intriguing question is simply, What is this film truly about? Is it a coming-of-age story for a young man disenchanted with his post-military service life? Or is it an anti-prejudice statement, albeit a simplistic and superficial one? Ultimately, as discussed earlier, such plot contrivences (to the credit of the filmmakers; they certainly made the correct decision not to overplay certain obvious stances the movie does indeed adopt), are unimportant in "Kazablan."
Once again, it is a "mood" film, or a film abundant with atmosphere -- and it should be treated as such. Any attempt to impart a diagectic quality on the part of the viewer is a clear error. ("Kazablan" is not, however, a slice-of-life picture. For an excellent example of such a film [and also to compare the overt differences between a slice-of-life and a mood movie], view "Nobody's Fool," the 1994 piece starring Paul Newman, Melanie Griffith, and Bruce Willis.) Simply watch Kazablan with one objective: Relaxation.